More thoughts on grizzlies

I guess it is still more fall than winter. Early in the week, we got about 2 inches of wet snow, then several hours of rain and then it froze and has remained frozen since then. Up to 28 degrees yesterday and down to 10 degrees last night and clear up to 20 degrees at 10 a.m. today.

Makes for lousy hunting. Too crunchy to walk without alerting everything for miles around so there are even more road hunters than usual. Yes, vehicle tires make crunching sounds but the people inside are warm which beats sitting on a cold stump in the woods.

Even with poor weather it seems as if hunter success is up. Whitetail bucks are in rut and thus as stupid as humans in rut, with often fatal results for deer and 18 years of bad luck for humans. So far, North Forkers have found two small bucks lying dead in the woods with obvious gunshot wounds. Don’t really know if they were left on purpose or got away from the hunter and later died. Both were near houses, not gutted, and the meat was spoiled. In both cases they were taken away from homes and left in the woods for the variety of birds and beasts that clean up carrion.

Even with this small feeding program, grizzly bears are working hard to find food. One hunter told me he had seen eight grizzlies this week and that one had followed him when he was hunting on foot. He discovered this when he returned to camp on the same trail and found bear tracks on top of the boot tracks he made going out.

Another resident had a grizzly do minor damage to a shop even though the only possible food source were the two cats who reside inside. Apparently the bear widened the pet door but did no real damage.

My personal bear count is up to 13, but I don’t expect to catch up with Gary McDonough who left in October with a count of 21. Several neighbors have seen even more—mostly grizzlies. Bear sightings climb fast when you see three at a time.

I did have a big griz leave tracks in my driveway this week. He came and went in the dark so I did not see him and although he came within 30 yards of the house, he was no threat and did no damage. In fact, I like seeing the tracks and really enjoy the thought that the big bears are out there.

Even more enjoyable and exciting is seeing them in the wild. I think actually seeing bears should be a relatively rare experience which means it is special. When folks are seeing 20 or 30 in a season, or eight in a week it is not so special and in fact is a warning. Sooner or later a human or a bear will make a mistake and we will have a tragedy. Any tragedy which results in the loss of human life will, inevitably, result in the loss of life of one or more bears. It is time for bears to be de-listed and managed by the state of Montana. That is what I think. What do you think? Write me at Box 3, Columbia Falls, MT 59912.